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Make salaries of senior management public now
Harare Residents Trust (HRT)
September 15, 2010

It is almost three weeks since the City of Harare councillors and the Harare Residents' Trust (HRT) demanded that the Town Clerk reveals all the pay rolls being used by the City of Harare to pay its senior management and other employees. The HRT has been informed by concerned councillors that this will not be happening soon because Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda has apparently taken the side of senior management and has reportedly successfully persuaded the councillors to drop this demand in council meetings.

The HRT rejects this thinking and maintains that Mayor Masunda and Town Clerk Tendai Mahachi should explain the 9 500 workers in the City, department by department, and specify what percentage each grade is getting of the total money spent on workers' salaries, every month. Our sources at Town House have disclosed that at least 680 ghost workers were unearthed by an internal audit completed last month. This, to a larger extent demonstrates beyond an iota of doubt that the City of Harare is being administered by a Town Clerk who has lost relevance. This revelation is only but a tip of the iceberg. The HRT believes that this audit, if done by an external and independent auditor will expose more ghost workers, mismanagement, maladministration and entrenched corruption.

According to some concerned councillors and city employees this disclosure of the secret payroll and the vote-of-no-confidence in the Deputy Mayor should have happened at the last full council meeting held at Town House on 2 September 2010. However, a few hours prior to the convening of the meeting, the Mayor allegedly held a meeting with different councillors in his office, at which he allegedly discouraged them from pursuing these matters citing confidentiality and the relationship of the senior workers and the Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development.

"The Mayor said this demand would create more problems for us as councillors," one councillor told the HRT. "According to the Mayor, senior management in Grades 1-5 are directly employed through the office of the Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, which makes them beyond our control. This full council meeting should also have dealt with the issue of a vote of no-confidence in Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Chiroto, who is mostly away of the business of the urban councils association of Zimbabwe where he receives a minimum of US$400 within Zimbabwe for every meeting he attends. "

In terms of Section 116 (2) of the Urban Councils' Act (Chapter 29:15), a Local Government Board is established, made up of seven members appointed by the Minister, of whom— one of three from an Urban Councils Association, one of three from town clerks, one of three of Municipal workers union, one of three from Public Service Commission appointed by Minister of Public Service and two experienced local authority or public administration officials or public service with five years experience in a senior post.

This Local Government Board has as one of its key responsibilities to (e) to approve the appointment and discharge of senior council officials and (f) to conduct inquiries into the affairs and procedures of council. Little is known about the roles and responsibilities of this board in the current set up.

The HRT has patiently waited, without a response, for the Local Government Board to intervene in the matter of the unsustainable salaries being given to 62 senior employees of the City of Harare in Grades 1-5. Their silence vindicates the HRT position that the Local Government Board is a waste of taxpayers' resources because of its apparent failure to make its position known on how this issue should be resolved. The Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development has also remained silent on a matter that he is best placed to deal with.

While we appreciate the fear that has gripped elected councillors following the suspension of seven of their colleagues last month for alleged acts of corruption and abuse of office, the HRT takes the refusal to disclose the salaries of senior management as a direct attack to the principles of transparency, accountability and good governance that Mayor Masunda claims to uphold.

The HRT demands a full disclosure of the salaries and allowances being given to heads of departments and their colleagues in Grades 1-5, and the payroll thereof without any further delay. Arguments previously given that their remuneration is a confidential matter fly in the face of expenditure of public resources.

Given the reluctance of Mayor Masunda and Town Clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi to comply with the above request, the HRT is with immediate effect urging residents of Harare, business and industry to withhold the payment of their monthly rates and rentals for the month of September. Do not be intimidated! We are in this together.

The HRT highlights below the key triggers to this move;

• Failure to reduce the huge allowances being given to senior management at Town House and Rowan Martin.
• The failure by the City of Harare to take heed of the directives of the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development that 70 percent of City revenue should go towards service delivery, and 30 percent towards salaries and administration.
• The 2010 Budget was implemented despite objections by the residents of Harare.
  Corruption at the Department of Housing and Community Services at Mbare's Remembrance District Offices has reached alarming levels that most residents living in rented accommodation are constantly being threatened and forced to part with their hard-earned money as bribes to identified allocation officials.
• Nearly 500 residents living in the Majubeki Lines of Mbare face a cholera outbreak following the disconnection of water for non-payment of rates by the residents. They now fetch their drinking water from Mukuvisi River and other drainages. UNICEF and other humanitarian organisations should take action now before a disease outbreak hits Mbare. Water is a right and cannot be disconnected at any given time.

Below is a guideline to the protest;

1. Delay payment of your bill until after 15 October.
2. Pay rates and rentals that you believe are justifiable, reasonable.
3. This protest shall be done for the month of September as a build up to mass protests against an elitist approach at Town House that promotes the continued impoverishment of the poor majority.
4. Residents should defend their space, against illegal decisions at Town House.
5. The HRT will review the impact of this action in early October, and devise further strategies to re-organise the city management.
6. this is only the beginning of a more intense campaign to influence the thinking at Town House.

Residents of Harare reject secrecy around remuneration of public officials. Those senior managers who want secrecy around their earnings should resign and join the private sector.

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